


Undying

by acquaintedwithvice



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Death, Dreaming, F/M, Magic, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-17 09:34:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18962587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acquaintedwithvice/pseuds/acquaintedwithvice
Summary: In the House of the Undying, ghosts still walk.





	Undying

In the House of the Undying, it is said, one may see strange visions. Even now, many years after its ruination, the empty halls echo with whispers, susurrations of times long past, of moments never born.

He looks up as she enters the tent, rugged features gentled by the mere sight of her. _Love comes in at the eyes._ "Khaleesi." 

He is polishing his sword - an act of peacetime; sure, calloused fingers moving independently of his watchful gaze, which rests on her. His armor and jerkin are nowhere in sight, the laces of the soft, butter-yellow cambric shirt open to the chest. Horsehide breeches, a gift from the Dothraki, are worn and faded from long use and many washings. Outside the tent, hot sun and swirling sands scour the canvas walls, buffering the sounds of restless humanity and horseflesh without, cherished whispers within. Weathered blue eyes, calm and deep and full as the sea, watch her patiently. It seems he is always waiting for her, in one way or another.

_There are times when I look at you, and I still can't believe you're real._

Finally, swallowing her uncertainty - her sorrow, her shame - she speaks. "Is this real?" The words are dry, sterile in her mouth - the heat and arid despair of the Red Waste, of the Garden of Bones... of King's Landing, smoldering with dragonfire. Another life, another time. She cannot taste his blood on her lips, mingled with the grit and salt of ashen tears - cannot taste her own. _Will not._  She is the Mother of Dragons, the Breaker of Chains, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms... She is a girl, in her wedding dress a thousand miles from home... She is Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, and she can refuse death. She can. She _does._

"Come." He holds out a hand, beckoning her near, and she complies as if compliance comes naturally to her. She sinks down on the animal skins, resting her head on his shoulder, feeling his fingertips in her hair - a liberty he had never dared, never would again. A blink, a momentary weakness, and she sees him as he is in memory - bleeding out on a battlefield, cold and still on a pyre, just like everything else she has ever loved. The warmth of his lips on her temple; soothing, reassuring, calls her back from dark visions, into the beautiful lie. 

In the House of the Undying, it is said, lies the body of a queen - striking in her loveliness, devastating in her sadness; eternally young, with the silver of the moon in her hair and the crimson of blood on her lips. She lies on a stone slab in the center of the ruins, still as a graven image in eternal repose; a terrible dragon guarding her slumber. 


End file.
